Two snowshoers buried waist-deep in snow after a deadly avalanche near Lake Louise on Saturday freed themselves and called 911 before using their hands and poles to save the life of one of their friends, say park officials.

The three surviving snowshoers then attempted to rescue the group’s two other members but their attempts were not successful.

A 42-year-old man Calgarian and a 31-year-old woman from Edmonton were killed in the avalanche, according to RCMP.

It is believed to be the first time in more than a decade that a person on snowshoes has been killed in an avalanche in Alberta.

Two women and three men, all originally from Spain, were caught in the slide around 3 p.m. Saturday while snowshoeing through untracked snow on Lake Agnes, an alpine lake located northwest of the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise.

None of the snowshoers were carrying avalanche equipment.

The slide buried a man and a woman in snow up to their waists. Two men and a woman were “critically” buried over their heads.

The duo who were buried up to their waists were able to dig themselves out and hear the screams and shouts of one of their completely submerged friends.

They used their hands and poles to dig out their friend, a man who was buried under a meter and a half of snow with his face 30 centimetres from the surface.

“They saved their friend,” said Lisa Paulson, a visitor safety specialist with Banff, Yoho and Kootenay National Parks who assisted in the rescue and recovery efforts.

The surviving trio were then able to locate a fourth member of the group — a 31-year-old woman — and when they unburied her face around 3:45 p.m., she was unconscious and not breathing.

When Paulson and other rescue personnel arrived on scene around 3:50 p.m., only part of the mountain’s slope had been released by the avalanche and a large amount of remaining snow meant the risk of a secondary slide was high.

Paulson was focused on getting the three survivors away from the dangerous scene and into a rescue helicopter that had landed about 10 meters from the group, on the flats of Lake Agnes.

“I was able to convince two of the three to come into the helicopter but the third, it was his girlfriend that had been buried. He did not want to leave the scene,” Paulson said.

The man had almost completely unburied his girlfriend and Paulson eventually helped him carry her body to the rescue chopper.

“It was a very traumatic situation ... He was, of course, very distraught. My main concern was for his safety and to get him out,” Paulson said.

As the chopper flew the group to awaiting paramedics, rescue crews attempted to locate the group’s fifth member.

Due to the immediate threat of another avalanche, snow safety professionals were brought in and they used explosives to trigger two more avalanches on the slopes above the first avalanche.

Once the area was deemed safe, Paulson and the rescue team returned to the area with Cazz, an avalanche rescue dog, and his master Mike Henderson.

The black Shepherd is being credited with finding the fifth member of the group just before nightfall around 6:20 p.m.

The deceased 42-year-old man was buried under a metre and a half of snow.

Paulson called the measures the survivors took to try to rescue their friends impressive and expressed condolences to the survivors and their families abroad.

“It’s just a horrific accident that we’re very sad they experienced,” she said.

Both Paulson and Lake Louise RCMP Cst. Robert Wright urged backcountry users to do their homework before heading out by checking avalanche conditions and carrying proper avalanche gear.

Avalanche conditions at the time of the slide were rated high in the alpine, high at treeline and considerable below treeline.

With the recent storm snow and warm weather, the avalanche hazard is now high at all elevations in Banff National Park.

It’s believed the last time a snowshoer was killed by an avalanche in Alberta was in March, 2003 when an American man was found buried beneath more than two meters of snow above Lake Agnes, in nearly the same place as Saturday’s fatal slide.

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Snowshoers rescued friend in Lake Louise avalanche that killed two

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